Why Politicians Lie

Winning a two-candidate election in which voters can be plotted on a spectrum will require winning the median voter. This is a well-known result in political science.

We usually think of the median voter theorem as applying to the left–right political spectrum, where it was first deployed. It does useful work over there, even if we can pick it apart sometimes at the margins. But let’s put it on another spectrum and see what we get.

Voters can also be ranked from low information to high. I postulate no correlation whatsoever with the traditional left-right spectrum; what I say here is true, and it stands alone.

Now let’s imagine that a political party—one bearing no postulated resemblance to either of the Big Two—set out to win the median voter on this continuum. “Being well-informed is important,” says the High Information Party, “and we pledge to have the most well-informed candidates and messaging around. If you’re especially well-informed, you should vote for us.”

The downfall of this strategy is obvious; well-informed people will still at least sometimes disagree with one another. A coalition can’t get off the ground.

But there’s still a way for the High Information Party to win the election. It can reach out to the less-informed voters using untrue claims that appeal to them. The best of these claims, of course, will be those that are also superficially plausible to some bloc of high-information voters.

And, owing to the median voter theorem, this will become the High Information Party’s only road to victory. It will stay that way just as long as well-informed people continue to disagree. Which means forever. The disagreements of the well-informed ensure that the median voter strategy will never work on a spectrum of how well-informed people are. For each marginal dissenter, the High Information Party needs to reach out to one more less-than-median-information voter.

To return to the real world: The High Information Party exists. It consists of the elite of the two major parties, who certainly know a good deal about how the country really works. But here’s their problem: To keep their jobs, they have to lie about how the country works in ways that less-informed voters will find appealing. They can’t do otherwise as long as any disagreement exists among them.

To win an electoral majority, the elites need the votes of people who — just for some examples — think that foreign aid consists of twenty percent of the federal budget, or that the government sets forty percent of prices, or that twenty percent of Americans are gay or lesbian, or that thirty-five percent of all workers make the minimum wage, or that Barack Obama is a Muslim, or that Republicans want corporations to have all the same rights as people, or that… well, you get the idea.

I almost wrote a counterpart paragraph about the Low Information Party. One interesting result is that the two aren’t perfect counterparts.

The Low Information Party is never forced to tell the truth, not without some fairly implausible assumptions. That’s because any Low Information Party candidate might still appeal to a well-informed voter: How many times have we not heard the claim that a candidate “backs the right policy, just for the wrong reasons” — and heard it spoken by a supporter?Report

Nice post, Jason. I suppose this is really an axiom of marketing, with the major difference between non-political products and politicians and political parties is that it’s much more difficult to sue a politician/party than it is to sue a company.Report

The sad part? The person who is one step higher than median is not at all close to “how America works.” He’s being lied to as well. I’d venture to say that 10% of Americans have any idea how things really work, and that less than that are capable of working the levers.Report

This is where I was going to bang you — that elites know how a country should run. And it leads into what I want to comment on

The High Information Party doesn’t have to have much agreement as long as as it can get enough to agreement on one point, that government has to be limited and that Americans in the private sector can figure out how the country runs as we make informed free choices and cooperate to deal with social problems. It seems to me at some point Americans will realize that statism is only making things worse, and that we are a knowledgable, capable people who can do in the private sector what the State has failed to do from central government. All the other stuff that we disagree on can be debated, and reason can influence us to slowly find many areas of agreement — but allowing government to “solve” all these problems is only balkanizing the country and creating more group warfare in the political realm.Report

Not just politicians, of course. Why does Steve Ballmer say that open source software is theft, when he knows that’s complete nonsense? Because he’s trying to persuade the low information consumer.Report

Of course this raises the question of how informed should the average citizen be about politics, policy, foreign affairs, what percentage of the population is gay and lesbian, etc. How bad is it to be a low-information voter?

People on the League are largely very well-informed regardless of their political ideology. In general, I would say we are the high-information voters who disagree. However, every now and then we work from the same plague of working from different facts or information. This is the MSNBC v. Fox News problem. Of course, plenty of partisans can be low-information voters as well.

However, I don’t think everyone needs to be a News or Politics junkie and I can see why people would find keeping up with news and politics and policy to be exhausting, depressing, and emotionally draining. There is nothing wrong with wanting to spend your downtime with friends and family in a relaxing manner instead of pouring over white papers from Brookings and Cato or watching the news.

What do you (and other League members) think is the happy balance between being a political junkie with strong convictions and being a low-information voter?

Of course, emotional appeals work of both sides and as proudly as I am I dislike inflamed rhetoric. But as you note, both parties know that they need emotional rhetoric to win.Report

Nu. What Jason’s post discounts is the sharing of information. If someone you trusts says “Don’t vote for that guy”… it’s the same thing as “watch this, it’s really good, you’ll like it!” or “he’s a real creeper, avoid him”.

It might be harder to be lied to, if you have impartial (relative to yourself) authorities.

And it also discounts the “I know everything about the candidate at a glance” voter — the one who judges based on “character” or other nebulous things that they avoid quantifying. Can’t lie to him, cause he ain’t listening.Report

the words Democratic Party supporter should appear after the word proudly.

I am a proud Democratic party supporter but often find the inflammed rhetoric of sites like Think Progress to be too much. The right-wing equivalents do the same to turn me off if not more so as well.Report

There is never a situation with perfect knowledge. Just like in the military, once the shooting starts all the plans go in the toilet. We /think/ we know this and that, but many of these issues aren’t even close to black and white, they are grey and gooey. It is like nailing jelly to a tree.

On another recent OP it was said that Romney lied when his ad talked about Obama gutting welfare reform. Now the “fact” is that Obama hasn’t personally overturned the law, he’s just selectively enforcing or not enforcing the law, which while having the same effect is just gooey enough to have as they say in the intelligence trade, “plausible deniability”. And so it goes, in 100 different ways on 100 different days. This is why I’ve always preferred science to politics. In science there isn’t a lot of argument about whether water boils at 100C. Someone wants to argue you show them the facts or perform the experiment.

Unfortunately when you munge politics and science as in climate science you end up with the worst of both worlds. Yes, much of America had one of the hottest summers since 1936, but the southern hemisphere simultaneously had one of the coldest winters. The worldwide average didn’t budge, except for the dearth of recording stations south of the equator vs the overabundance of them here in the good old USA. And so it goes, we don’t have sufficient facts to make informed decisions on a multitude of issues, and Jason is right, our fearless leaders can’t even tell us the truth because too many of us just can’t handle the truth. And so we quibble about the curtains while the elephant takes up residence in the living room.Report

“Now the ‘fact’ is that Obama hasn’t personally overturned the law, he’s just selectively enforcing or not enforcing the law, which while having the same effect is just gooey enough to have as they say in the intelligence trade, ‘plausible deniability.'”

In other words, he exercised the executive’s prerogative to define his enforcement priorities. Of course, presidents have a nasty habit of going overboard on this sort of thing, and other than having heard about the welfare/work thing, I haven’t followed closely enough to know much more about it. So you might be right.Report

On another recent OP it was said that Romney lied when his ad talked about Obama gutting welfare reform. Now the “fact” is that Obama hasn’t personally overturned the law, he’s just selectively enforcing or not enforcing the law, which while having the same effect is just gooey enough to have as they say in the intelligence trade, “plausible deniability”.

Actually, wardsmith, it is a lie. Hell, even my governor, arch-conservative, Sam Brownback, admits as much.

The directive from the administration reads, “The Secretary [of Health and Human Services] is only interested in approving waivers if the state can explain in a compelling fashion why the proposed approach may be a more efficient or effective means to promote employment entry.”

He’s responding to requests from governors–many of them Republicans, mind you–to grant them more flexibility in meeting the welfare-to-work requirements.Report

Um gee Rambling Rod, nice of you to drop in hours after the statement was made to misinterpret the words for us. Brownback said, and I quote, “As far as I have seen, but I don’t know all of the basis to it“. Then we find that he HIMSELF wrote a letter to HHS saying that opting out of work requirements on a program that has worked successfully for 15 yrs (*since Clinton implemented it*) is “alarming”. Sure makes you think he’s all for it doesn’t it?

Now of course you’ll tell me Romney lied because Sebelius did it and not Obama personally. Then I”ll try and explain to you what the word Obama Administration means, then you’ll be off to other blogs never to be heard from again here I suppose.Report

Romney’s ad says, “Under Obama’s plan (for welfare), you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.”

That’s a drastic distortion of the planned changes to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. By granting waivers to states, the Obama administration is seeking to make welfare-to-work efforts more successful, not end them. What’s more, the waivers would apply to individually evaluated pilot programs — HHS is not proposing a blanket, national change to welfare law.

The ad tries to connect the dots to reach this zinger: “They just send you your welfare check.” The HHS memo in no way advocates that practice. In fact, it says the new policy is “designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”

The ad’s claim is not accurate, and it inflames old resentments about able-bodied adults sitting around collecting public assistance. Pants on Fire!

It may be possible that the Secretary doesn’t have the authority to do this, but if so, that’s unfortunate because the intent is to meet the desired outcomes of the law while giving states the flexibility to experiment. It’s called federalism. IF you weren’t so incredibly over-the-top, in-the-tank, partisan you could see that. But you can’t.Report

The No Perfect Information argument is overstated, even in combat. Information isn’t perfect and doesn’t have to be. For this reason, the US military pushes decision-making to the lowest possible level, to the platoon and squad level, where the information is fresh and can be confirmed. When you’re managing by objective, knowing everything is less important than you might think. No matter how good the intelligence might be, it’s not a question of what the enemy’s doing as your own status and deployment.

Case in point: the Communist armies were highly hierarchical. Information flow and objectives were managed by zampolit, political enforcers. For example, in the USSR’s tank companies, only the commander’s tank had two antennae: one for communicating with subordinates and the other for communicating up the chain of command. Take out that tank and you’ve cut off the rest of that company from its command hierarchy: the subordinates didn’t even know the frequency for battalion command.

Politics, more precisely, campaigning is about objectives. It’s not about facts. Paul Ryan’s out there, lying his ass off about Simpson-Bowles and Medicare. This is zampolit crap, telling management what they want to hear. The GOP is lying, everyone knows it. The GOP wants to win and they don’t care about the facts.

Facts are completely irrelevant and Breitbart’s only repeating the lies. Obama’s not gutting welfare. 1996 set up work-for-welfare. The weirdest thing is this: Republican governors asked for the waivers. Not Obama. This year HHS said the states could apply for waivers. No waivers have yet been issued.

You know all this, Ward. Why even bother putting up a link to this lie? It’s zampolit talk, brave Pericles shouting “On to Sparta!” There’s only so long people will tolerate being lied to, plied with the cheap liquor of Obama’s a Socialist. He’s just not a socialist. It’s not going to make any difference what the facts might be in this or any other political campaign.

I sorta wish Obama would come out and say “Paul Ryan’s philosophy is to take all your welfare away and if you don’t work you don’t eat. And Mitt Romney’s nothing but a stuffed shirt who’d let him do it.” Now that would be true.Report

Rambling, You quoted Politifact /after/ I’ve already quoted the article that debunks what Politifact said. Their partisanship isn’t even up for debate, it is demonstrably so, but /I’m/ the partisan hack here? This OP is concerned with the reasons politicians have to lie, partisanship is one of those reasons.

Blaise, as usual a lot of words but little of substance. Ryan didn’t like Simpson-Bowles for well documented reasons. Show me the “lie” or shut your pie hole. It is all well and good to ‘assert’ a lie, and as I’ve ably shown, there are certainly GRAY areas where the entire episode is a matter of interpretation of fully subjective material. Again, I prefer the objectivity of science to the subjectivity of politics.

But you /almost/ made a good point about objectives. In Ryan’s speech last night he stated his objectives quite clearly. You may not agree with those objectives, but they are the same as Jack Kemp’s decades ago. A strong economy supports a strong tax base. If we all lived in your (and Obama’s) fantasy land, we could overspend year after year and borrow at zero percent interest indefinitely. I don’t share your fantasy, I’ve been in business just as long as you have and there is NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH! Worldwide economic conditions have given America breathing room to set its fiscal house in order but it is lunacy to believe that will continue indefinitely.

Answer this question. Should we or should we not live within our means? Put another way would you personally run up ever larger mountains of debt in the Pascal household?Report

Your second link above is broken, Ward. Your first doesn’t seem to support your argument.

I’m looking at the Heritage one now, but just offhand it says that HHS is breaking procedural rules (I’m not sure yet that this claim is substantiated, but I’ll get there eventually). It doesn’t, however, lay any groundwork as to what sort of burden this is putting on the welfare system.

I mean, if HHS is breaking the rules, that’s one thing. If HHS is breaking the rules and it’s adding negligible burdens to the welfare state, that’s another thing. And if HHS is breaking the rules *and* it’s adding a substantial burden, that’s a third thing.

None of those things are “ending Welfare Reform as We Know it”, which would be a fourth thing.

Not to say that the fourth thing isn’t happening, but there seems to be some disagreement here that should be clarified.

P.S. -> If you’re going to claim that Politifact is biased and this renders them unsuitable as a source of evidence, I think a Heritage Foundation link is an odd counterploy.

Biased or not, in terms of what they cover… claims are substantiated or they’re not. Politifact and the Heritage Foundation can both be biased in what they cover without actually lying about something.Report

Patrick, thank you for your reasoned response. First things first I think this is the missing link which references HHS backtracking. I don’t know how or why it got munged.

The backtracking discussion elsewhere addresses your concerns. As always in this jelly nailing business, HHS has plenty of wiggle room in “interpretation” of the memo, and just to be sure they sent out a whole new letter to “reinterpret” what they’d already said in the memo so they could retroactively claim the original (correct) claims against them were (now) false. Sausage at its worst.

As to Politifact comparing to Heritage? Heritage Foundation does NOT put themselves out there as “Sorting out the truth in politics”. There are entire websites devoted to Politifact bias one called: http://www.politifactbias.com/

I recommend you read THAT site if you’d like to learn a bit about the blatant bias exhibited on the politifact site. Not that liberals won’t scream and yell when they get pinched a little now and then by a “half true” judgement on a statement that one of /theirs/ makes. Without question politifact is biased and biased in the liberal direction. Do a statistical survey of “pants on fire” judgements against liberals and conservatives on their site to prove it to yourself. Or accept their bias and state as Blaise and other partisans would gladly contend that only the conservatives lie. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile Hertiage Foundation does NOT claim to be the arbiter of truth, nor anything like it. Furthermore, I didn’t use Heritage to rebut politifact but Breitbart who themselves reference the NYT! And we all know how biased /they/ are so that in itself is extraordinary. At the end of the day one must use one’s own judgement. You know I use my own, you may not agree with me and I guess we’d have to compete on IQ tests to determine who has the better judgement skills.Report

I think there is an additional that (somewhat) counter-balance the incentive to lie: other people can convince the low-information voters that you are a lier in a low-information way and you will lose their trust and their vote. This is something that can come from within your own party (e.g. the recent pushback against Akin or Bachmann from the GOP); from the opposition (e.g. the lampooning of Kerry as a flip-flopper or the “Read my lips: no new taxes” promise made by Bush Sr.); or from the news-media in general.

The whole idea of Fact Checkers, in my opinion, was meant to strengthen the role of the media in credibly informing low-information voters, but instead it’s revealed the fact that all politicians lie so much that simply demonstrating those lies does not encourage them to stop doing so.Report

The whole idea of Fact Checkers, in my opinion, was meant to strengthen the role of the media in credibly informing low-information voters, but instead it’s revealed the fact that all politicians lie so much that simply demonstrating those lies does not encourage them to stop doing so.

Yes! There’s also a coordination problem here. If the leadership of one party all somehow collectively decided — without any defections — that they would convert their party into a High Information Party, then the other party, which did no such thing, would be the one to benefit.Report

I agree that this is the case. The parties are coalitions of: 1) those that are informed but have different values or goals or disagree on the interpretation, 2) those that thrive off the coalition and thus serve it. Some of these even serve it by concocting the rationalizations and arguments. Tribalism. 3). Those that are uninformed and motivated by what Caplan refers to as “naive populism.”

Parties thrive by creating and growing dependent tribalistic populations and by persuading disinterested uninformed voters via naive populism. ( Buy American!…. Preserve Traditional Families!) Liberal democracy degrades over time, thus leading back to the recommendations the libertarians tended to suggested on the recent Democracy forum ( the need for more competition, upstarts, creative destruction, choice and exit rights).Report

Politicians lie because the process makes it impossible to tell the truth. The truth is something that comes from your heart without being filtered by considerations of self-interest. Every word from modern politicians is run past dozens of consultants, media-experts, etc. The spontaneous remarks during debates are rehearsed endlessly with those same people. When the statements of a politician are congruent with reality, it is for the purpose of making you believe the next lie.Report

While (much of) politicians’ messages are run past consultants and the like, that alone doesn’t explain why they say things that they know are untrue. After all, the consultants might be urging them to tell the truth. I’m sticking with the original idea, that any victory in politics requires a coalition of the knowing and the ignorant. And that all but demands a good deal of lying.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

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Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.